


one of of those days

by fairmanor



Series: Tough Talks [10]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Depression, Just co-existing tenderly in peace, M/M, Marriage, Married Life, Mental Health Issues, More Like Sad With a Hopeful Ending, Not quite angst with a happy ending, Reading Together, domestic life, looking after each other, they just love each other so much, wordless conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:53:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26733163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor
Summary: Sometimes, the loudest conversations are ones where nothing is said at all.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Tough Talks [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918438
Comments: 38
Kudos: 165





	one of of those days

**Author's Note:**

> \- And we're here! The end of the Tough Talks series. I didn't anticipate that the series would get this kind of reception when I first started posting, so for the past month I've been blown away and incredibly grateful. 
> 
> \- And yes, I couldn't help revisiting the Tolkien metaphors, because:  
> a) I'm a shameless nerd; and  
> b) Patrick and Lord of the Rings just seem to go together so well. Maybe it's because they both mean a lot to me, maybe it's because Patrick is the human embodiment of a hobbit. Who knows?
> 
> *Also, I want you to forgive me for using the movie transcript rather than the book's for the quote at the end. I know, I'm a monster, but I prefer the film's version of the Helm's Deep monologue. You can fight me about it next Thursday when I'm free.

The routine is simple and well-worn, if rarely used.

It creeps up on them like a fog does, and in the many ways a fog can; sometimes there’s days or even weeks of blank stares into the distance and harsh, snapped responses before it lands. Sometimes, they simply find themselves in its company when they wake up.

All Patrick needs to do to let David know it’s come to stay is to text him, ‘one of those days’. And David knows just what needs to happen. Or, rather, what needs to not happen.

For sometimes, talking about things is the last thing that someone needs. Sometimes the sound of their own voice and the weight of the words of others bears down upon them like a vice around the throat and the heart. David has never seen himself as one of those people. When he’s distressed or uncomfortable or anxieties run high, David is flailing around the room and whoever’s in it in a flurry of pitchy arguments and rapid-fire barbs. Never does David Rose command a room more than when he’s unhappy.

His husband is different. While Patrick has his moments – and boy, does he have them – they’re usually charged with a different kind of unhappiness. One that’s not _really_ unhappiness. The competitive frustration of baseball, the annoyance of tricky customers; those are the moments when his bitchy, chatty side comes out. When it’s personal, deeply personal, he shrinks in on himself in a way that only David knows about, for he sees the evidence curled up next to him in bed. For Patrick is deliciously hot-tempered, except when he’s not.

So he’ll text David, early in the morning. ‘One of those days’. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes before David wakes up himself. Sometimes it’s at 3 in the morning, and David will wake some hours later to see Patrick burrowed deep beneath the covers again, sleeping just for something to do. On those mornings, David will force himself out of bed as early as he can to fetch Patrick a glass of water and write him something short and soft on a Post-It Note, then set them both on the bedside table. The note is never anything too encouraging or positive. David never wants to seem like he’s trying to put Patrick’s whole world to rights with a couple of words. A simple ‘love you’ or a heart usually suffices.

David presses a soft kiss to Patrick’s head, whether he’s awake or not, and goes to work. Sometimes Patrick will send him a heart emoji or a sleepy mirror selfie to show David that he managed to get out of bed, even if it was just for the toilet, and while David is proud, he doesn’t usually respond. He doesn’t need to.

No matter what the day at the store looks like, David always closes an hour early on one of those days. He wants to get home and make sure Patrick can still manage a late lunch in case he forgot to eat, which sometimes happens. So he comes home, fills up the kettle and puts a teabag beside it for whenever Patrick wants tea, and makes him up a plate of things he can eat without mess or cutlery. Sliced-up fruit, crackers and cheese, sliced bell pepper, cured sausage, figs. If Patrick’s still in bed, David will bring it to the end of the bed and lay it there, sitting and stroking Patrick’s hair and back while he eats slowly. If it’s ever obvious that it’s Patrick’s first meal of the day, which it sometimes is by the speed with which he eats, David doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

It took three days like this over the course of the first year of their marriage, three stretches of time in which Patrick would wind up like a string and then crash for no apparent reason, for David to gently broach the topic of him getting help. He had winced at the anticipation of his headstrong, stubborn husband flying off the handle and arguing that he’s fine, but to David’s surprise he’d been receptive to the idea. Even enthusiastic. He got back in the car after one appointment and sat for a while, before quietly telling David he’d been diagnosed with depression.

David had reached for his hand. He knew how scary diagnoses could be, knew the disorienting, isolating feeling all too well. Patrick took David’s hand. He said, “I think I knew that already.” And they’d cried, and they sat out on the veranda and ate and drank chilled wine and watched the sun set. And they didn’t say much, but they didn’t need to.

David returns downstairs with the plate and washes it up along with the mugs and glasses Patrick has used during the day. He makes himself some dinner, and then makes a half-portion more that can either sit in the pot waiting for Patrick or be repurposed as lunch tomorrow. After that, he unfolds the soft throw on the back of the largest couch in their living room and lays it out. Sometimes he doesn’t hear Patrick’s footsteps coming to join him downstairs for the evening. If he does, David will spring up and put the kettle on before settling back down again.

It’s always sports they have on the TV. David learned early on how it settled Patrick, the low, fervent drone of the commentator and the gentle ups and downs of the game. While he doesn’t get as invested as his husband and has no interest in the players, David has started to find a kind of comfort in it, too. It’s meditative and predictable. When all’s said and done, the very worst thing the players can do is lose.

On another day, David would comment on how cute Patrick looks wrapped up in his blanket with his little cup of tea, and maybe try and kiss him to death once the mug is safely out of the way. But it’s one of those days. So he tucks his feet under Patrick’s thighs and sits on the other end of the couch with the crossword book that Stevie makes fun of, but the one he rather likes for rainy days and boring days and days like this one. The joke’s on Stevie, anyway. Some of the crosswords in this book are among the most difficult a crossword can get, and as evidenced by her quite frankly shocking performance during their seasonal stoned board games night, he is unusually gifted at puzzles in comparison to other people.

“7 down, specimen or sample?”

It’s the first thing he’s said to Patrick all day, and it will be the last. He doesn’t want to push things.

He watches Patrick take a sip of tea, and David warms at the little bit of life that’s easing back into his husband’s eyes with the excitement of the game on TV.

“Variety,” he says quietly. And David smiles at him in thanks, and that’s that.

It’s a tough conversation to have, this one, but they do it with ease. Not all conversations are spoken. Not all conversations can be. There are some things so human, so instinctual and full of ancient connection that they cannot be put into the modern word. Some conversations are like dances, like strolls in the meadow, like baring yourself to Tina Turner on the freshly swept wooden floor of the shop you built up with your hands. This conversation is more in the bones, more in the heart. It’s cupped gently between linked fingers as they lie in bed that night, the bedside lamp left shining on Patrick’s side a little brighter, for a little longer than usual, because while small gestures can’t fix everything it’s always nice to have a reminder.

David looks up from the book they’re reading together, teasing the back cover with a finger. Knowing the huge Tolkien fan his husband was, David had gifted him the limited Folio Society set of the _Lord of the Rings_ last Christmas _,_ complete with a golden engraved slipcase and _The Silmarillion_. While he’s willing to read the trilogy with Patrick, finding enjoyment in them since he knows how much they mean to his husband, David definitely can’t be persuaded to touch _The Silmarillion_. He’ll leave that one to the real nerds.

“Have you finished as well?”

Patrick raises his eyebrows as his eyes scan the page a little faster.

“One sec – yep. Done.”

Patrick looks at David and snuggles himself down, getting himself into a comfortable sleeping position without unlinking their hands.

“What did you think?”

“It was good,” David says. “Better than the first one.” Then he thinks for a second, and adds, “The payoff wasn’t that satisfying though, was it? It was kind of…I don’t know, quiet.”

Patrick shrugs, closing his eyes as David presses the smallest of kisses to the space between his eyebrows.

“It was, but I like it. It’s enough.”

And there’s something about that that makes David pull the book out when Patrick is asleep, reading the last few pages once again, sucked in by the stories that have lived with his husband his entire life. And again, he finds himself seeing the love of his life printed there between the words.

_“It’s like in the great stories. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back. Only they didn’t, because they were holding on to something…That there’s some good in this world. And it’s worth fighting for.”_

Patrick had funny ways of telling him things sometimes. They both did. There were days where David was too anxious to muster more than a few words, there were mornings in the store where he found that he physically couldn’t talk until the display had been altered correctly. They’re still working each other out one piece at a time, a patchwork of the things they’ve shared over the years. Their insecurities, idiosyncrasies, the career they share. The things about each other that no one else sees held safe in their pockets like pebbles and sea glass, carried to the end.

David looks at Patrick as he falls asleep, watches the lines of tension that had accompanied him all day seep out and give that beautiful face some peace. It doesn’t matter if tomorrow will be the same, or different. It doesn’t matter. They’ll tough it out.

They always do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks once again for coming on this little journey with me! I realise it's bold of me to claim I know anything about adulting as someone with a 1 in front of their age, but I hope I've been able to do them justice with some conversation topics I've never really seen discussed in D/P fics before. Thanks for sticking around, hope to see you soon!
> 
> \- F


End file.
